At the recent Associated Builders and Contractors’ Users Summit held in Dallas, Texas in May 2021, a select group of health care and industrial construction leaders embraced the concept of the "Project Summit," a new approach to delivering projects built upon the foundations of trust, collaboration, innovation and expertise.

“What makes the Project Summit unique is its focus on both contractual and cultural aspects of delivering construction,” says Kenneth T. Sullivan, professor at Arizona State University’s School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment and one of the panelists at the recent summit. “It considers all the facets of the project approach, contract terms, payment, risks, profits, estimates, schedules, etc., but also recognizes that until the teams and the “boots-on-the-ground” start working and thinking differently, not much of what is written into a contract will be realized on the jobsite.

“In this regard, Project Summit includes the project culture, procurement and team selection, team and individual behaviors, how ideas and innovations manifest, how the teams communicate, as well as how to drive real impacts on productivity, safety, quality and satisfaction,” Sullivan says.

The panelists included Dan McKechnie, project manager at Air Products & Chemicals; Kevin Sell, CVO at United Group Services; Dan Freese, president at United Group Services; Ryan Odendahl, president at Kwest Group; Todd Stevens, vice president of industrial construction at MetroPower; Pete Dumont, CEO at PrairieDog Venture Partners; David Pugh, partner at Bradley; and Kenneth Sullivan.

Beyond the new project summit concept, attendees were treated to sessions such as:

• Anirban Basu and the Chamber of Data
• New Approaches to Industrial Design
• Construction Professionals and the Health Care C-Suite: Strategies to Influence Management’s Thinking
• The Future of Integrated Project Delivery: Taking IPD to the Next Level
• Health Care Construction Pre-Fabrication Strategies and Their Impact on Design, Construction and Occupancy
• Leveraging Relationships and Trust to Tackle Pandemic Challenges